Topic: A more effective way to reduce signature spamming (Read 2571 times)

I just want to remind you that all that increased spam is an effect of overall higher activity of people present on bitcointalk. We have more and more people just because bitcoin is now known and famous.
I wish you could ban signature campaigns as an experiment for 1 month. And then see if something in 'spamming department' will change. Because I seriously doubt that.

Bad bear, I'm just hoping that This upcoming tool won't become an excuse for merciless banning to take place. I've tried to point this out again: warnings can be perceived nicely and help people learn a lesson in a positive way too.

Sure, I'll bear with the bear

If wanting to reward posters for good posts then some sort of "tip bot" would make *way more sense* than ad-sig campaigns.

Helpful (and far more patient than me) forum members such as DannyHamilton have resorted to publishing lists of all ad-sig posters to ignore because they are so sick of it.

To offer money for "any sort of post" is simply the wrong incentive.

This is why tips for useful posts would improve the content way more than allowing ad-sigs will ever do.

Advertisers just want to see their ad in every single topic (as that is all they care about) and posters oblige as they just want to get as much as they can from their ad-sig.

You (meaning the forum not anyone in particular) have created the need for a police force (which is generally not the kind of thing that members of this forum like).

And yes - I am "beating my head against a brick wall" with this (haven't quite given up yet but will soon).

Sig campaigns aren't all bad. They increase traffic to the forum, give people incentive to participate, reward posters, introduce people to bitcoin, give them an easy way to try it out for themselves without having to buy them outright, stimulates the economy/businesses, etc.

But it introduces a lot of problems as well. It's basically a balancing act, and right now it's balanced in favor of the spammers, and the forum is suffering for it.

I don't think ending them completely is the best solution, no. I think the ability to ignore signatures will do a lot. I know someone is going to say "STUPIDBEAR THE SPAM IS THE PROBLEM NOT THE SIGS", but bear with me here. I'm thinking long term.

No rules is worth for everything! This kicks in that case. Hopefully you understood what I was aiming at. One can easily identify very short (honest) posts and ones used to spam.
I think what he wanted to say that he won't let them manage them anymore, and just be straightforward from now on. If your posting habits are bad, you get banned, end of story.

Am glad to see @BadBear is coming around - I've been complaining about the rubbish ad-sig posts for months and at first I was basically ignored and then next I was trolled (by the ad-sig posters of course) - but it is becoming obvious that more and more people are just sick and tired of seeing pointless posts that are being made by people "earning money" that just wastes our time (being that of normal forum users and the mods and admins also).

This forum used to be "interesting" in past years but since late 2013 it has gradually become more and more full of pointless posts (to the point that it becomes tedious to bother trying to follow topics).

turn the campaign into monthly payout will help a bit



Are you mean terminating signature campaign is the best solution ?

It's probably a good idea. I've dismissed it in the past because it seemed excessively heavyhanded, but that's ignoring the fact that it's an alternative to something even more heavyhanded (outright banning). Kinda like saying the proxy fee is a bad thing because anonymity, privacy, etc, when in actuality it's an alternative to not allowing those registrations at all.

It does have some downsides, but almost all of them are shared with bans, so not really an issue. There are some unique downsides, but I think those are outweighed by the upsides, that people would be allowed to continue participating in the forum while removing sig spam from the equation. Too many people just don't get the hint, or don't realize they're doing it, or genuinely don't think they are, and they will end up permanently banned, which is a shame in some cases.

 
I'm not saying this to sound like a dick, or be offensive, just being straightforward. I'm not sure if you're being facetious or not, but you* had your chance, you failed. We aren't going to micromanage your campaign for you, tell you what to do, tell you what not to do, etc. If we wanted to do that, we'd just cut out the middleman (you) and do it ourselves.  

*By you I don't necessarily mean you specifically, sig campaigns in general.

Maybe signatures could be removed for x amount of time but I don't think it will make them raise their quality or postings necessarily. If they're essentially banned from earning but can still post they'd more likely post rubbish out of frustration or just keep complaining about it. Sometimes a ban is better just to cool off for a bit. They can also still collect the activity points which is probably an added deterrent when faced with losing them.


Yeah, you get next to nothing for those. The 'side ads' are more about just getting extra exposure for the campaign owner really.

Well first and foremost, the ignore feature of the forum is close to useless. Currently, if you ignore someone, you can still see an empty post whenever he posts and you see his full posts if they get quoted.

I try to use the ignore feature when I see constantly trolling just to see their full posts whenever someones takes their bait.

If by side adds your mean the ones in your personal message space then someone would have to be pretty desperate to spam for just that payment, the rates for PM message alone is very low, not saying some still wouldn't do it though, just very petty stuff.

there are also side ads campaigns.

Killing the signatures won't make the account unable to earn money simply by posting

Chipping into what you said, the other type of posts in the marketplace that frustrate me are the "do you accept escrow?" posts? I haven't seen many in the past couple months though, and I think that the staff here are thankfully deleting those.

Some of these people are trying to find information that might protect a potential trading partner. For example warning that a newbie selling a gift card might have purchased it with a stolen credit card. But yea, I know what you mean when people ask a lot of random questions, the answers to which often would not sway most people one way or another in deciding to buy

I have seen a bunch of people who "kick the tires" asking questions with no intentions of buying (mainly in the goods/computer sections). I think the spammers who make those paragraphs of utter junk are worse than the short spammers!

I'd like to give an Idea.. It might seen over the top but after all its just an idea....... 

Anyone entered into a sig campaign must register their sigs.... Registration will attached a spam button onto their posts....if enough people think the post is considered spam then a flag is sent to mods to investigate...

my 2 satoshis.....discuss

I would like this idea. I had previously proposed(original) something similar to this a few weeks ago - my actual proposal would be to completely disable signatures for a certain period of time starting when they were banned for signature spamming (insubstantial posts + paid sig) and to have it reenabled sometime after they can start posting again. My idea was later somewhat rebutted by SaltySpitoon in that it would stop people from displaying their PGP keys, etc., and this would be a good rebuttal to that rebuttal in that people could still easily display things like a link to their PGP key but would effectively prevent people from participating in signature deals.

exactly. A good amount of the time, anyone with a paid signature who is posting in the auction section and not making a bid post alone, is more likely then not spamming and doesn't actually have any interest in winning the auction. There is sometimes legit conversation in auction threads, however I think it is pretty rare

Yeah don't worry, we don't just check people's post histories and judge by that. We actually read the OP of a thread, posts already made in that thread, etc. There are a couple word phrases that sum up a constructive post, and there are paragraph long posts that just repeat what has already been said. Constructive post equates to new ideas or interpretations. If you just repeat the same thing that has already been said without giving it an interpretation of your own, that is still insubstantial. Its quite easy for us to see if its an occasional, "Ok that person was tired and didn't read the post above them" or if its something that has been done on their last 30 posts.

Thats one of the reasons paid advertising spam is so annoying to us, we don't just ban on a whim, there is a lot of time that goes into it. We have always had to contend with spammers/bots and the occasional person who needed a ban, but paid advertising spam has more than 10x increased our usual routine and is costing us a lot of man hours. I suppose this is why the site has staff, but at the same time, its far more enjoyable helping people and nudging users to keep the discussion quality high than it is to be constantly hunting for disruptions.

I feel that too. People now are being paranoid about 'length' of every post.  But you can be very descriptive with few words really... Quality response is not always long, but no all short messages are quality posts.
I fear this is highly subjective matter and it can;t be explained easily. Each case is different.